Georgia judge throws out seven new election rules passed by Trump-backed state legislature

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. Among the rules Cox invalidated were three that had drawn much attention – one that required the number of ballots to be counted manually after polls closed and two that had to do with certifying election results .

Cox noted that the rules “are not supported by Georgia election law and are in fact contrary to election law.” He also wrote that the state election board does not have the authority to pass it. He directed the board to immediately rescind the rules and notify all state and local election officials that the rules are invalid and may not be followed.

The Associated Press has reached out to attorneys for the State Election Board and the three Republican members who supported the rules for comment on the judge’s ruling. They could appeal, but time is of the essence with less than three weeks left until Election Day.

The State Election Board, controlled by three Republicans backed by former President Donald Trump, has adopted numerous rules in recent months mostly dealing with the processes that follow after voting is cast. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, but claimed without evidence that widespread fraud cost him victory in the state.

Democratic Party organizations, local election officials and a group led by a former Republican state representative have filed at least a half-dozen lawsuits over the rules. Democrats, voting rights groups and some legal experts have raised concerns that some rules could be used by Trump allies to delay or avoid certification or to cast doubt on the results if he wins next month’s presidential election against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris loses.

Cox’s ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by Eternal Vigilance Action, founded and led by former Republican Scot Turner. The organization had argued that the state election board had exceeded its authority in adopting the rules.

Reached by phone Wednesday evening, Turner said he was “overjoyed with the win.”

“It was a complete victory for the Constitution of the United States,” he said. “These rules have been rejected by Republican citizens as well as Democrats and independents. This isn’t about partying. This is about doing what is constitutional and restoring the separation of powers, and that is something every conservative in this country should care about and support.”

A new rule that the judge blocked requires three different poll workers to hand count the number of ballots on Election Day to ensure that the number of paper ballots matches the electronic counts on scanners, check-in computers and voting machines.

Voters in Georgia make their choice on a touchscreen voting machine that prints out a sheet of paper with a human-readable list of the voter’s choices and a QR code. This is the ballot that the voter places into a scanner that records the votes. The manual count involved the paper ballots – not the votes.

Critics, including many county election officials, argued that a hand count could slow the announcement of election results and place additional strain on poll workers at the end of an already long day. They also said there is not enough time to adequately train poll workers.

Proponents of the rule argued that the count would take additional minutes, not hours. They also noted that scanner memory cards containing the vote counts could be sent to central counting centers in each county while the hand count is completed so that the transmission of results would not be slowed.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Tuesday temporarily blocked the hand count for the November election while he considers the legal grounds. He said the hand count could ultimately prove to be good policy, but it was too close to the general election to implement it now.

Cox wrote that the rule is “nowhere permitted by Georgia law” that “prohibits the duties of poll workers after polls close.” Hand counting is not one of them.”

Two other new rules that Cox invalidated were adopted by the State Election Board in August and relate to certification. One definition of certification includes requiring county officials to conduct an “appropriate investigation” before certifying results, but does not specify what that means. The other includes language that allows county election officials to “review all election-related records produced during the conduct of elections.”

Proponents argued those rules were necessary to ensure the accuracy of vote counts before county election officials sign off on them. Critics said they could be used to delay or deny certification.

The first certification rule is not part of Georgia law and “adds an additional and undefined step to the certification process,” Cox wrote, saying it is therefore “inconsistent with and unsupported by Georgia law, making it “void and unenforceable.” ” make. The second rule “directly conflicts” with Georgia law, “which establishes the time, manner and method in which election-related documents must be prepared and preserved,” he wrote.

The other rules Cox called illegal and unconstitutional are those that require someone casting a mail-in ballot in person to provide a signature and photo ID; require video surveillance and recording of ballot boxes after polls close during early voting; Expand mandatory designated areas where partisan poll observers can stand at tabulation centers. and require daily public updates on the number of votes cast during early voting.

At least half a dozen lawsuits have been filed challenging some or all of the new rules. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia had filed two lawsuits and joined others. Election boards in some districts and individual election officials in other districts had also sued.

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, said the last-minute rules could cause confusion among voters and poll workers and undermine confidence in the election results. An association of district election officials also called on the state board to slow down on new rules.

And in a memo last month, the office of Attorney General Chris Carr, also a Republican, warned that some rules appeared to conflict with existing law.